The prebattle party had now reached the crescendo and Damien’s men were now as rowdy as they’d ever been and were ready to cut off the heads of anyone standing in their way. One final pep talk was all that was needed now—just some words that would send their collective tempers into overdrive. Once he accomplished that, Damien was going to set them loose.
In stark contrast to the rest, a half-dozen men dressed in all black clothing were sitting idle in a separate location not far from the others. They wore no visible patches and they’d traded in their leather vests for body armor, tactical load-bearing gear, sidearms, and heavy battle rifles, which each man now had slung across his back. They appeared younger and a bit more svelte than the regular crew and they wore masks that kept their identities hidden. When Damien looked in their direction and gave them a thumbs-up, they started their engines in sequence and roared away a moment later.
“What’s that about, boss?” Danny asked curiously while pointing over to the men in black. Not being aware of what Damien had planned was a rare occurrence for him.
“That’s insurance,” Damien growled. He then dismissively turned his gaze away from his sergeant-at-arms and held his hands in the air to gather the attention of his men. “So…how many of you are ready to die with me today?” he bellowed.
The crowd of bikers roared while an assortment of firearms, edged weapons, and even bottles of liquor were all held in the air on display. Damien raised his hands and glared at the group as the pandemonium slowly died down.
“Well, I hope you don’t have your hearts set on it…because you won’t have to,” he paused. “The only ones dying today are the motherfuckers who killed our brothers.”
The crowd of hooligans erupted again. Damien smiled and held out a hand to hush them after a moment.
“All right, all right—shut up and listen. I want all of you—everyone here—to remember our fallen brothers for a minute. Vance, Jared…and especially Jesse, our vice president.” Damien set his jaw and clinched both of his fists, holding them in the air. “Our enemies took them from us. They had no right to do what they did—not one goddamn right. They committed an unpardonable sin, and for that, they have to pay.”
The crowd thundered again and shouts of assorted drunken war cries inundated the air. He hopped on his bike, and as he started his engine, a ripple effect of others soon followed.
“My brothers, it’s blood for blood! Watch each other’s backs. Let’s go to war!”
Seconds later, the group tore out of the neighborhood, headed for West Virginia, in a thundering symphony of engines.
Chapter 26
Mason residence
Trout Run Valley
Hardy County, West Virginia
Thursday, October 22nd (Present day)
After she’d overheard the call on the radio, Kim Mason glided through her home as if she had a pair of roller skates attached to her feet. She flew past a framed piece of fabric in her hallway with crocheted letters that carried the saying ‘a place for everything and everything in its place’. Kim had become an expert of the mantra long ago. An experienced military wife for most of her life, Kim herself was a veteran—at getting things done in and around her home—and had learned long ago what it meant to be the head of a household while her husband was elsewhere serving his country. The level of urgency then paled in comparison to what it was today, and now, she was making last-minute preparations for her home and getting everyone in it ready for the possibility of an incoming attack.
Chad’s words were brief, but had provided everyone in the valley the time they needed to prepare for what was incoming. The first transmission Kim heard over the radio was his call to her husband, Fred, in which he uttered the words, “Danger inbound, I repeat, Danger inbound.” Kim swore she could hear the sounds of motorcycle engines in the background as he transmitted. She’d grabbed the radio at that point and held it close to her ear while the other adults stationed in the house gathered around and listened intently.
Fred had replied to Chad’s transmission with “Break. All stations, this is Leader One. Stand by. Danger is imminent—I repeat, danger is imminent.” There was a pause and then he said, “Forward North, can you advise an approximate number? Over.”
After a minute of tremendously uncomfortable radio silence, Chad’s voice finally returned to the radio.
“Approximately sixty to seventy hostiles en route to your AO—I repeat, sixty to seventy hostiles en route to your AO. Over.”
Sixty to seventy hostiles. Nearly an entire company of armed intruders intent on killing anyone they encountered were now headed into their neighborhood. Kim didn’t listen to the radio anymore after that. She knew what needed to be done. The invaders would reach the bridge over Trout Run in just under ten minutes. If they somehow managed to make it through the layers of defenses that Fred had devised, the attackers could feasibly be at her doorstep in less than a half hour.
Kim’s priority was making certain that the children were located in the safest place in the house and that left her with only one viable option. Fred’s gun cave was constructed of steel-reinforced poured concrete that was virtually invulnerable. It was also fireproof, had a separate ventilation system, and could be sealed off from the house in case of a disaster. In addition to being the home for Fred’s substantial arsenal of firearms, ammunition, military surplus, and other accessories of the trade, Kim had fortified the room with supplies, including nearly a month’s worth of food and water for a half-dozen people. No matter how bad things went today, if they had to hole up inside the gun cave as a final resort, they could remain there safely for some time. At the very least, it gave the children a place where they could be safe and stay that way for a while. It wasn’t the best option and it wasn’t the most glamourous one either…it was just the only practical one. And now, all the youngest of the youngest generation in the valley, including George Brady’s grandchildren, were now huddled together in the cramped quarters of Fred’s gun cave.
Kristen Perry had all her emergency medical supplies in their places and a spot in the basement set up and ready for the possibility of incoming wounded. Her husband, Michael, was prancing around the house nervously, but had remained in close proximity to her since their arrival there days ago. He remained both worried and pensive, and the AR-platform rifle that Fred had loaned to him just before training never left his sight.
Kim had given Michael and Bryan Taylor the job of guarding the house along with her. The three of them would remain mobile and constantly move about the interior of the house for the duration of the incursion. If attackers were seen outside the home, they would engage them, but they were not to leave the confines of the house.
After the call on the radio, Bryan had attempted several times to tend to his guard duties, but he and Sarah were struggling to find a way to comfort their daughter. No matter what they tried, Emily wasn’t happy in the cold, unfamiliar surroundings of the gun cave. She was a bright, precocious child and it was easy for her to sense that something stressful was going on around her. The adults were doing their best to put up a façade, but Emily wasn’t fooled. She considered the eyes of the other children that were perched around her in the concrete-walled room and knew all there was to know. Some of the faces she recognized, but there were also many she didn’t. This wasn’t normal and all she wanted to do was go home.
Bryan reached down to her favorite green blanket that Emily had tossed down onto the floor out of protest for the umpteenth time. It was one of a few physical items that she’d grown attached to that helped bring her solace. At first, she refused it again when he tried to hand it to her, but after a second pleading attempt, she finally took hold of it. A tear rolled from her eye and she reached for him. Bryan smiled and slid the rifle off that he’d been carrying over his shoulder, leaned it against the wall, and then took a seat on the cot beside both his girls. Emily didn’t say anything, but Bryan and Sarah both knew what she was trying to communicate to them. And they both, lik
e it or not, felt exactly the same way. They were scared, too.
“Emily, I think it’s time for a nap,” Bryan said softly, his eyes endearing themselves to her. “You look very tired to me.”
Emily shook her head.
“You’re already in your pajamas,” Bryan said. “You’re all ready to go.”
Emily half-protested and looked to her mother for some support.
“Yes, Em,” Sarah reinforced. “You can take a nap with me. Mommy’s tired, too.”
Emily rubbed her eyes and wrapped her arms around Sarah as Bryan rose to his feet. When she guessed he was planning to leave her again, she pouted and held her arms up for her father to pick her up.
“I want a snuggle and a dream about,” Emily’s tender voice pleaded.
Emily handed him her blanket, which Bryan folded along a crease and placed over his shoulder. He then picked her up and pulled her close to him and she laid her head on the blanket.
“Now…what should we dream about?” Bryan said as he casually pirouetted with her. “Horses? How about little horses or ponies?”
Emily shook her head again.
“Okay. How about Mickey Mouse?”
Again, Emily didn’t agree.
“What about the baby pigs we’re about to see in a few days? Want to dream about them?”
“I want to dream about puppies,” Emily said. “Lots of puppies.”
“Puppies it is, then,” Bryan agreed. “That sounds like a great dream.”
Sarah stood up and wrapped her arms around her family. She then placed a kiss on Emily’s cheek followed by a peck that met her husband’s lips—a gesture that made Emily giggle.
Bryan laid his daughter down gently onto the cot with her blanket and reached for his rifle. Sarah gave him a concerned but endearing look as he exited the gun cave and secured the door behind him. He was going to do his job now and it was time to do hers.
Sarah sat beside her daughter and pulled a thick blanket up and over her. She glanced around the room at all the mixed expressions before turning over to face the one that belonged to her. Emily had already closed her eyes and was beginning to fall asleep. Sarah’s right hand slid up and underneath the pillow and soon found its way to the rubberized handle of a revolver she’d put there earlier without anyone noticing. She wrapped her fingers around it and pulled it a degree closer and began to feel only slightly safer.
Chapter 27
The town of Wardensville had once been one of a handful of thriving, small towns in Hardy County, West Virginia, and at one time supported a population of around four hundred. The ensuing lawlessness that befell the town after the collapse resulted in a dwarfing of that number. The town’s population, for all intents and purposes, had become extinct, and the members of the Marauders MC were the first to visit the town in a long time.
As they powered through, passing scores of dilapidated and burned-down businesses, homes, and other buildings, they revved their engines, bellowed and cursed loudly, and fired their guns into the air as a warning to possible onlookers to keep their distance—but their warnings fell on deaf ears. Wardensville had metamorphosed into a modern-day ghost town.
Turning the hard corner onto Trout Run Road off Main Street just west of town, seventy-six bikers, all armed with an array of firearms ranging from submachine guns to double-barreled shotguns, along with their choice of melee weapons, accelerated their motorcycles in the direction of Perry and Trout Run Valley in search of retribution for their fallen brothers. Damien himself was seething. Ever since viewing the drone footage and seeing Jesse’s motorcycle on display in someone’s backyard, he’d wanted blood. What he’d seen on the flagpole was the straw that had broken the camel’s back. It had been put there just to provoke him and had achieved its purpose.
Finding another one of his club officers slain during his visit to Wolf Gap the day before only further served to solidify the deal. It was personal now and whoever was responsible for these atrocities was about to get what they deserved. This was now officially a war—and it wasn’t one that Damien had any intention of losing. Whoever lived in this valley was about to experience what he had in store for them and it wasn’t going to be a meeting they’d soon forget. Men, women, children—it didn’t matter. He was going to end them. Damien was going to repaint the surface markings of Trout Run Road with their blood and feces. After that, he was going to bury them all in one mass grave and spend a week desecrating it as a means of reprisal.
When the bridge over Trout Run suddenly came into view before them, Danny saw something that put him in a state of alarm. He slowed his motorcycle down to a crawl and held a fist in the air, signaling everyone behind him to do the same. Damien gave him a confused look as they rolled to a stop about fifty yards before reaching the bridge.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Damien questioned.
“Something’s not right,” Danny said as he peered ahead.
“What?”
“The cars…someone moved them,” Danny said as he pointed to just beyond the bridge.
“What fucking cars?”
Danny turned to Damien. “There were two cars parked in front of this bridge. I saw them on the footage Bates showed us yesterday. Now they’re gone.”
Damien chuckled. “Danny, I think you’re seeing shit.”
Danny shook his head as Sasha pulled her bike beside him. “No way,” he said. “Something’s not right here.”
Danny began looking around at the forest that was now enclosing them much more tightly than it had when they’d first entered the valley. It started to feel creepy to him. This wasn’t good and he knew it.
“Boss, this could be a trap,” said Danny. “We should head back and rethink—”
“No way,” Damien spewed as he shook his head furiously in refusal. “No fucking way are we heading back. We’re here now and we’re gonna do this now—today.” He then waved his hand in the air and began to pull forward.
Danny cursed loudly and pointed to several other bikers, motioning for them to surround him and Damien. “Cover him! Stay tight and get ready to shoot!” he yelled.
As the group pulled ahead, Sasha remained in place with her boots still on the ground. She kicked her bike out of gear and sat back in the seat, taking both of her hands off the handlebars while the others swerved around her, some occasionally looking back at her, wondering what the hell she was doing. Once the entire entourage had all passed by her, Sasha turned her head around to look at the open road and began thinking of all the things that she’d seen along the way here that reminded her of home. She then put her bike back into gear, turned it around, and sped off in the opposite direction of her colleagues.
Danny was fully engaged in battle mode, but it didn’t take much time for him to realize that his wife was no longer alongside him. He’d had enough of her behavior lately. Frustrated, he grabbed one of the men beside him by the shoulder, causing the rider to drop the whiskey bottle he’d been holding. He pointed angrily to the road behind them.
“Take two men and go get her! If she doesn’t come quietly, shoot her!”
The first thing that caught Damien off guard, along with the rest of his men in proximity, was the sight of the biker beside him when his head exploded. The man’s body launched backward from his bike and landed on the road as his motorcycle toppled to the side and began to flip violently. It caused a domino effect of other motorcycles swerving to keep from hitting him and his bike. Some of the men swerving lost control and skidded to the road, some landing on top of one another. While struggling to untangle themselves or upright their bikes, they were shot dead—some being hit multiple times. Some managed to evade the mess and motor on. Others who’d managed to stay on their bikes by deciding to brake before a collision subsequently caused the remainder of the group to decelerate to a snail’s pace. After that, more shots emanated from multiple hidden locations in and around the surrounding forest. It was complete chaos.
Danny began to scream
wildly at the men as the earsplitting sounds of rapid gunfire filled the air from what seemed like every direction around them. Several distinct smacking sounds brought Damien’s attention to two more of his men receiving bullet wounds to their chests, necks, and heads. He desperately scanned both sides of the road and up into the trees for any indication of where the shots were coming from, but couldn’t find anything. He couldn’t even see the muzzle blasts. It sounded like they were being fired upon by hundreds of guns.
Damien lifted his H&K into the air and cried out furiously while unloading a full magazine into the woods. The submachine gun emptied in a matter of seconds, and with his other hand responsible for maneuvering his ride, reloading it in a safe manner was unrealistic. Damien tossed the weapon to the road in frustration and pulled his pistol from his waist. He then accelerated.
Danny pulled forward to keep up with his president and hollered at the others to do the same. The hail of bullets that came at them was relentless. As more and more men went down, Danny struggled to keep others pulling forward to surround and protect their leader. The men fired their guns back along the road and into the woods, but they had no idea what they were shooting at. They were slowly but surely losing the battle.
Danny was beginning to seriously worry about the welfare of the men and turned around to inspect the scene behind him. When he did, he couldn’t believe what he saw. Most of the men had already been shot dead, their bodies scattered sporadically along the road and edges of the woods. Only several riders remained mobile and only a few of those were left in the fight. Then Danny noticed a young girl. Her hair was pulled into a ponytail and she was running wildly along the road. She had a black rifle pulled tightly to her cheek and was firing bursts of rounds into those still standing—dropping them with precision, one right after another. He looked away for a moment to navigate, and when he turned back again, he saw that several others on the road had joined the girl with the ponytail and were in the process of finishing the job she’d started. And then he saw the muzzle of her rifle pointed in his and Damien’s direction.
This We Will Defend Page 31
